2 posts tagged “kim stanley robinson”

View other items tagged “kim stanley robinson:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “kim stanley robinson” on Vox.

Icehenge

Dec 9, 2006
Post a comment

Icehenge

Finished Icehenge last night. It's an old Robinson novel from 1984. The story unfolds through three different journals, the first written by a miner and eyewitness to one of the central events, the second by an archaeologist who researches the events told of in the first journal, the third by a historian who disputes the theories published by the archaeologist. When people in live for more than 500 years, with no increase in memory capacity, and the government is a semi-totalitarian regime, the past, on both the individual and universal levels, can easily be distorted. Icehenge illustrates this by creating a constant sense of reality (and KSR is good at realism), which forces you to re-evaluate what seemed real in the last chapter. A good book, and a must-read for any Kim Stanley Robinson fan.

Next up is Pratchett's Interesting Times. Rincewind and Cohen the Barbarian seem to be two of the main characters.

Pratchett et al

Dec 1, 2006
Post a comment

Soul Music

Bought a couple of books today, as I finished Soul Music last night. The new ones are:

Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge
Bruce Sterling's The Zenith Angle
Pratchett's Interesting Times, Maskerade and Feet of Clay

Soul Music was an average Pratchett. Death is always an interesting character, and the seeing Dibbler in the main cast was a nice change. Some good plot turns and unexpected events and, of course, quite a few Pratchettian puns: "I'm not sure I'm that interested in music any more. It's a world of hertz."

Picked Icehenge as my next read. Kim Stanley Robinson is one of six authors where I've decided to read every novel published. The others are (in no specific order) William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Philip K. Dick, Terry Pratchett and Bruce Sterling. The status of this project is as follows (percentages based on gut feeling):

Kim Stanley Robinson: 80%
William Gibson: 100%
Neal Stephenson: 95%
Philip K. Dick: 65%
Terry Pratchett: 50% of the Discworld novels
Bruce Sterling: 50%

So... A lot left to read. Naturally, I read other authors too – Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, for example, and the must-reads like Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four and Heller's Catch 22. However, the ones listed above are the ones that I focus my reading energy on. Obsessive? A little, perhaps.